The Truth

and a really good book

Why does every festival end in bloodshed?

Tulkas and I interrogated the Arl, as he awoke and revealed, that he tried to kill us for a deal with “the Father”, a shadow of a person, who promised him to protect Nevara, if the Arl sacrifices Ferelden to the Darkspawn. Seriously, either he’s lying or to stupid to realise he’s being used, but the Circle seems to play safe and expects the latter. So they send no one else than our sweet Adelica together with us into the heart of Nevara to investigate the existence of “the Father”.
It will be a hard time. Once we reach Nevara, I have to expect no support from the Guild and I don’t want to imagine in how much trouble Adelica will get herself as the leader of the expedition.

Anyways, maybe the sudden travel across continents will make the hounds loose our trail… but that would be too nice to be real. I think I will give my guild one last message before were leaving Ferelden on a boat from Highever.

Today we reached Highever and as coincedence will have it, a festival was about to begin. One last happy time before leaving the country being cut off from my Partners of the Owls or so I thought. We just found an inn for the night, as we were hired to deliver a mysterious chest under some suspicous conditions. I wished we would have let the chest be chest and stayed in the inn. It was no big deal for me, that we should deliver smuggled goods, but delivering smuggled goods for which a bunch of werewolves have an interest does bother me. Thanks the Maker, the werewolves weren’t contagious apparently.

Irving assigned Leoncio and Tulkas to interrogate the Arl and they revealed something unsuprising, the Arl is an idiot. Well, they also got some valuable informations out of him: He came from somewhere near Nevara and a strange man, apparently called “Father” by his minions, made him an offer he couldn’t refuse… as it seems. The “Father” commanded him to open a way into the deep roads on the isle on which Kinloch hold resides. He showed him his incredible ability to let some Darkspawn drink peacefully a cup of tea, well or at least he had some illusionary Magic which made the daft Arl think he could. While they were interrogating him I went to Irving and Gregoir. I had to complain about the safety measures of the Tower, I think we should at least have disarmed the commoners. When Tulkas arrived Irving had already a new Quest for me. I was appointed to travel to Nevara, in the lands of the Arl and investigate what was going on there, perhaps I will find out what an illusin it is that this “Father” commands. Tulkas and I just started discussing, when Irving suggested we should work a week in the kitchen, to get better along. Outrageous! We just saved their life, curses we just saved the whole Circle and what was our reward? A week in the kitchen like we were some Tranquil! Well he did not made us actually do it but I was pretty angry… I wished Wynter would have been there, she would have helped me to keep calm… she always does.

especially not if he arrives with 20 armed men, in a stormy night.

A suudden storm hit Kinloch Hold and all travellers and inhabitants of the Spoiled Princess were invited into the tower of the circle for protection. Next to Aiyana, Amarok, [[:alistair] and myself, there were the owner of the tavern and four merchants. One of them was a dwarf with a book about herbs. I bought it for Tulkas, but kept it myself if I should ever need to know a poison mushroom or so. The only one who stayed at the inn was Tal. He prefered to face the storm, rather than entering this tower filled with mages. Well actually there were just the apprentice mages, some enchanters, a few templars, Irving and Gregoir at the tower as the storm hit it. And with the storm an Arl arrived at the tower, together with his 20 armed men, including a group of mages and templars, in search for some shelter.
I thought this night would be perfect to check the other people from the spoiled princess for hints, if they are from the Hounds, but they seemed safe. The Arl on the other hand appeared to be a threat. Not because he served the hounds, but he tried that night to take over the tower of the mages. If I hadn’t give in to the sleep, I would have seen him climbing the stairs to the upper rooms, where the enchanters, the templars, Tulkas, Adelica and Gregoir and Irving were sleeping.
This way I was wakened by the shouts of alarm and rushed up to Adelica to save her.
The floor was filled with about five men, armed with crossbows and swords. But they didn’t expected me to attack them from behind and Tulkas gave him some serious trouble, just as Aiyana and her wolf Amarok were doing, so we defeated them without much injuries. Well it could have been less, if the mages, who slept with Adelica in one room hadn’t just standed, drunken with sleep, in the middle of the fight doing nothing. Looks like Adelica is sometimes useless because she is a mage.
Then we went to the top of the tower, even though that one older lady enchanter said we should hurry to the basement, because the mages the Arl brought in here took some of the apprentices with them, but we thought that Gregoir and Irving would be also in danger. So we tried to help them and thanks the Maker, we came no second to late. Gregoir and Irving managed to kill some men in their rooms, but in the spire of the tower, they faced the Arl and would have been dead by now, if we hadn’t helped them. We also managed to capture the Arl and I’m not quite sure, but I thought to see how Aiyana stripped one of the dead templars, who worked for the Arl, of his purse, while Gregoir were busy beheading one of the fallen templars, who surrendered. If she really did that, I wonder if it was courage or madness, that let her do it. I mean, Adelica and Tulkas were worried, if they could let us to the spire, because it’s a sacred place or some stuff like that and she looted a dead body up there just behind the back of a fanatic templar.
Anyways, after that, we hurried down the stairs to the basement, where the apprentices were taken to and searched through the storage rooms down there. There was quite a lot of stuff and if I could, I would have liked to take some of the stuff, but the chances to get caught and that this would mean to be separated from Adelica – and maybe being separated from my head – was a bit to risky. And in one of the larger chambers we found the mages and the imprisoned apprentices. And also the old mage lady, who asked us to go down here instead of helping Irving and Gregoir. It looked like she went down on her own, was captured and about to be sacrificed as two other apprentices before her. Luckily, we arrived just in time to prevent her from being sacrificed. I don’t want to know, what these mages might have called with her blood.
With the last enemy mage fallen, the tower was saved and now we have to wait, till the Arl awakens, so we can question him.

I'm not sure what to think about this

I can’t believe what I just read.
An attack on the tower, shortly before battle of Ostaghar?
Why are there no other records about this? There are multiple reports about the incident,that occured during the blight, but an nevvaran noble – most notably an Arl – attacks the fereldan circle and nobody mentions it?
Either there is something big going on -maybe political backgrounds – or this Adelica is out of her mind.
I’ll have to do some research about this Arl Harrington.

You expect some murder and get a full fleged massacre

After some calm days in the Tower my next adventure should begin. But this time it was not me, finding the adventure, but the adventure that found me.
Irving and Gregoir decided that they should evacuate the people of the Calenhad Docks to the tower becouse a migthy storm was rising. So it appeared that we eould have some guests for the night and perhaps the next. Well most of the Mages and Templars were not here anyhow, most of them were marching towards Ostergar, so we had plenty of room for the people.
I just came down to the entrence hall, from my studies, to see if I could possibly help with the organisation of the quarters for our guests, when it suddenly knocked on the door.
Out there was an Arl, he called himself Arl Harrington, with his entourage. They were 20 People, five Mages, three templars eleven commoners and the Arl himself. They claimed they were trying to flee the storm with their boat on Lake Calenhad but had no succes and were here to seek shelter. Tulkas was reluctant to let them in at first but when Gregoir told him to hurry up he opened the door and let them in. Of course neither Irving nor Gregoir deemed it necessary that our guests would hand in their weapons, a critical mistake, as the night to come would show.
I was preparing for the apprentices to move up in the second floor. To think that the apprentices would be resting in the chambers of the Magicans tonight… I knew that I would not rest easy and would keep an open ear for anyone running in the corridors tonight and so I spent my time reading until deep in the night.
Later this night terrible things started to happen. I awoke when I heared Tulkas voice from the next room and saw a person with a dagger who was about to kill an roommate of me. But Justice was swift and my reaction even swifter and the evildoer smitten by my raw magical powers. Actually I was kind of suprised that he did not survive my Arkane Bolt, but he deserved this fate anyway. After this the Enchanters and Senior Enchanter Wynne, were awake, well kinda I suppose. I was heading out in the corridor to look what was up in Tulkas room but out there were seven armed people from the group of the Arl. A fight ensued in which I managed, with the help of Leoncio and Aiyana, who were strangley enough just about to storm into the second floor, and Tulkas to overwhelm them, even though my superriors appeard to be so drowsy that all three of them not even managed to cast even a single spell. I really wonder what our circle is comming to these days when I have to watch such incompetence from even the Senior Enchanters.

After we had defeated those wo tried to kill us in our sleep, we learned that they were succesfull with the killing of two of Tulkas Roommates and that the apprentices were gone missing. I proposed that we should head upwards to look after Irving first, but Wynne was insisting on looking downstairs first. We came to no agreement and well perhaps she was kinda the one in charge at this time, I just could not bring myself to follow her orders, considiring her underwhelming performance in the combat we just had immidiatly before this. When she saw that Tulkas and me were really not fond of the idea to go downstairs first, she just went on down the staircase. I took the party of travelers with whom I had traveled before and asked the other enchanters and Templars to guard the prisoners we had taken, and went upstairs with them cursing Wynnes stupidity and her arrogance.
Up there did not found Irving and Gregoir, only the murderers who had attacked them, well at least what remained of them, so it appeared that the two of them would be up in the forth floor.
Tulkas and me were discussing if we could take Leoncio and Aiyana up there with us, it is the fourth floor after all, and we decided that we would go up without them and would call for them if necessary.
The Arl was rambling on his blighted plan, i did not understood everything but it did not appear to be to reasonable. Well when we were on the last few steps Tulkas sprinted into the fourth floor screaming “I can not allow this to happen!”, or somthing along those lines. The battle begun, and Irving and Gregoir got overwhelmed by the enemies, three bribed Templars and the Arl. But thanks to my healing spell I could save them. when the battle was over Gregoir beheaded the last bribed templar, who had surrendered just moments ago, not quite civalious, he should really do something about his temper. The Arl however did survive and will talk later on hopefully.
The missing aprentices where not with those however and there were still 4 Mages left. So we assumed, that they must be downstairs. Following their trail we found the door to the cellar wide open and searched them down there. Tulkas and Leoncio were scouting for us, I really hope that I will not regret that we allowoed Leoncio and Aiyana down there, if I find out that Leoncio has taken anything from down there I will make his life a waking nightmare! Once we found the evil magicans, they were just about to use Wynne as an blood sacrifice for an, probably crazy, ritual and so we attacked them with no delay. Unfortunatley we did not arrive in time to save all of the aprentices, two of their lives were already ended by the ritual daggers of those lunatics. When the battle was over there was no one left we could take prisoner.

There is a cure for the Amber Rage, but none for stupidity

Ater the giant crab and some more minutes of waiting, some little lights came near the cooked bugs. They looked like small, burning fairies and sang a disturbing song, which caused us all to lose our hope of completing our quest. If Olek and Fiala hadn’t been there all our efforts were for nothing. They withstood the song of the fire fairies and managed to break the spell that lasted on us. The fairies ate the cooked bugs and flew away.
We followed them, in the hope they are the fire elementar we were waiting to appear.

Finally we arrived at an old cavern, which the faires entered. In the cave was a small sea and although the fairies seemed to be out of flames, they entered the sea. Soon we found an underwater passage of unknown length inside. But we took the risk and dived through and reached larger complex of caves and tunnels, which were the home of a giant snake, that attacked us as we explored the cavern. It was a hard fight and I almost died, as the snake grabbed me with its tail, trying to breack my back. But in the end we managed to kill her just in time and after some magical aid and five minutes of rest I was ready to keep on moving. The tunnels were quite small. Thanks to the creator that Tal didn’t get stuck in one of them. So we found another cavern filled with rubbish and bodies of another century and again Tal and Aiyana couldn’t help themselves other than stealing from the dead. But I have to admit, they found a quite usefull short sword from the time of the Tevintivan Empire, which will be quite handy in the future. The next tunnel we took brought us finally to the shadowmoss. And at this point we had to realise that the so called shadowmoss is nothing more than some snake dung. Giant snake dung to be precise and apparently the food of the small fairies. Well at least we had the last ingredient for the cure. And not quite much of it on top of that. Further we hadn’t much days left to return to Sothmere, so we rolled up our sleeves and marched till the darkest night embraced us.

On our way back we had some nasty intermezzos. On of them was a babarian with the Amber Rage, who was trapped inside a hole, that some hunter might have digged to catch an animal. Well, I made the mistake and thought he couldn’t do any harm to me and missed his throwing knife. So I got infected too. And the only words I got weren’t words of hope or consolation. No, the dear Adelica Fetherston just said, that she already planned to infect me, so I can walk through the babarians, if the garrison is under siege, to bring Stoyanka the shadowmoss, because Adelica thinks that the infected wont realise me, just because I’m also infected. She really wanted to bet my life and the cure just because she thinks it might work. At least I understand why my old mentor told me, that protection missions are often the worst missions.
The next encounter was almost just as bad as the last. Ser Vilja Wulver, the mayor of a village close to Sothmere, and his men laid an ambush for us to get the shadowmoss. They heard we were searching for it and their village was also attacked by the babarians and unlike some dimwits in Sothmere they didn’t wait for their death, but tried to find a solution.
Luckily, Adelica and I managed to convince him, that we couldn’t give him the shadowmoss and that he could try to find some in the cavern. Also we promised him to give him any remainings of the cure after saving the people in Sothmere. He agreed and so we went on just to be intercepted by some of Richtas henchmen. They said, they were following some babarians who were defeated at the garrison, but as we showed them our back, they simply attacked us. Atfer their defeat, they told us, that Richta ordered them to kill us and to destroy the shadowmoss, while he burns Wanda and the other infected villagers, to take over the village. Truly a stupid plan. So we rushed to Sothmere and told them that Richta ist guilty of treason against his own people and that we have the cure for the Amber Rage. Richtas henchmen were our attestors. I expected him to raise his weapon against us, but he gave in and was burned instead of the infected.
Further the old Stoyanka prepared the cure and I had to drink it. A nice mix made of herbs, mushroom, water and giant snake dung of course. Nothing you want to drink, but if you have to choose between death or giant snake dung, I still prefere the latter. On top of that, I might have gain some reputation in front of the other for drinking this giant snake dung, without batting an eye. When we left the next day, Wanda still wasn’t awake, so I left her a letter, in which I beg her to send me a sign of life, when she’s fit again, but I didn’t ask her to come after me. Travelling with me would put her in danger for sure, but I still hope she leaves Sothmere before this village get itself killed by their own stupidity.

On our way back to the tower, I ask Aiyana to join my group of mercenaries. Stoyanka asked us to take her with us, so Aiyana can see more of the world and if we have a female guardian for Adelica, I don’t have to convice Tulkas everytime to peep on Adelica, when she’s changing her clothes or when she’s taking a bath. Eventhough I have to deal with her “tamed” wolf.

Gregoir wasn’t amused to pay for a third mercenary, but by denying a big part of my reward, I managed to keep the contract with the protection of Adelica.

The true nature of the Shadowmoss

When Tulkas cooked the bugs some strange little creatures appeared. They came close to the pot, in which he cooked the bugs.

Then they started to sing a strange and sad song, we thought at first that there was no fire elemental and that we had failed, but Olek was sure that those little Creatures were the Fire elementals, so we followed them and came to a cave. Soon we found a big chamber inside the cave and inside it the Guardian who was watching the precious Shadowmoss, the final ingredient we needed to save the lives of the innocent Townspeople who were suffering the Amber Rage due to the raging Babarians. But we landed a few good hits and neutralized it within a minute.

We started exploring the caverns in which the Guardian lived, Leoncio found a shortsword dating back to the Tevintean Empire. I wonder how it ended up in there.

However soon we found a room with the same agonizing smell as the bugsoup, which Tulkas had cooked to bait the elementals. And in there it was, the Shadowmoss. Well actually it appeared as if this so called Shadowmoss was not actually any kind of moss. It apeared to be… well the extrementitious matter of the giant Snake. Why do the people even call it ShadowMOSS? If anyone just told us that we are looking for the manure of the giant snake we would probably have been… nicer to this guardian snake. The worst thing is that the elementals seem to eat it. This is on the one hand disgusting and on the other hand very unfortunate becouse the Snake is deceased now. But wait could it even be only one snake? Were did it come from there have to be brothers and sisters somewere! We should bring this cognition home, in the hope that the next Adventurers will be better informed.

We are on our way back and somthing incredible happened. We found one of the infectet in a kind of trap-hole. When Leoncio investigated it the infected threw a dagger and Leoncio got himself infected now. Well I tried to comfort him and told him that I had already made a plan to get the moss back to the ill, in the quite probable case that the garrison was under siege from the barbarians, which would require him to get infected nevertheless. It somehow didn’t seem to make him mouch happier though.

On our way back to Sothmere we had another encounter. A group of people waited for us in some hills. When their leader, a rider on his horse, wanted to negotiate with us we asked him why his men were hiding and he told him to get out of their hideouts. He told us his story: His village was attacked by the infected barbarians and they have some injured who are contaminated by the deadly grip of the Amber Rage. Unlike the people of Sothmere the inhabitants of his village have actually the guts to take their chances and try to rescue the ill. Unfortunatly we couldn’t hand them over our Shadowmoss. We came to an agreement with them. We gave them some of the potions which could not heal, but delay the Amber Rage and a description how to find the cave. We also told them, that we had taken the moss of one chamber, but that it could be quite probable that their would be other chambers with more of it. We also told him that they could come to Sothmere and if we had some leftovers of our medicine we would relinquish it to him.

Yet another encounter has slowed down our march for Sothmere and this was a really preposterous one. We met some guards from Sothmere. One could expect that this would be a quite pleasant greating for us. We were the mighty saviours of the circle, who arrived with the Shadowmoss, a rare igredient of old legends, to rescue their people from certain death, weren’t we?

But no, of course those crazy people were not there to be our honour guard, ok their claim was that they were there to hunt some infected barbarians, which they had routed before, what actually would be a quite good reason to be out there, too. They were out for our heads of course! Richta commanded them to finish us off and destroy the Shadowmoss, should we succeed, what we did of course, and were following those orders blindly like the brainless minions they are.

We were not really prepared for an attack so this battle was quite hard but we overwhelmed them. When we questioned them they spit everything out and told us all we needed to know of Richtas woebegone excuse for an plan. Richta was planing to burn the ill on stakes to demonstrate his power so he could take over the position of the mayor. Truly despicable and outright stupid.

We decided to let Fiala and Olek by our prisoners and head on to Sothmere as fast as Alistair could get me there.

We finally got to Sothmere and the situation was grim indeed. Richta and his man were preparing the stakes and just about to burn those poor souls. I had my great appearance and charged him with the crimes he had commited and was about to commit. And after his braindead minions had made their testimony, no one was questioning the correctness of my truth. Richta got what he deserved and was burned on one of the stakes on which he planed to burn an innocent life to show of his power.

Unfortunatly we had only enogh medcine to cure the ill of Sothmere and one extra for the brave men and women of the other village. If they don’t find their own moss they will have an tough choice…
But we had no time to wait in Sothmere, we had no chance to notify the circle that we would have to take this… detour. So we decided to embark with the first ray of the morning sun.

We are back in the Circle and our Journey was a fortunate one. No bandits or worse were preying on us. The only people worth of notice we met were a delegation of mages with their templar guardians. They were on their quest to Ostergar, where they will fight and slay the darkspawn.

Now we are back and have been debriefed by Irving and Gregoir. Irving appeared to be pleased with my decision to help those people. Gregoir seemed not to be as pleased with the effort of Tulkas as Irving was with mine. He made Tulkas write his report until tommorow a quite outrageous task, given that it was already evening when we arrived. Tulkas, trying to accomplish this task came to me with an even more outrageous request. He actually asked if he could borrow my Journal to finish his stupid report in time. Of course I refused. Actually I ended up helping him with the writing of his report all night long, but I have doubts that it is really allowed for the mage who is beeing overwatched to tell her guardian what he should write in his report…

Into the wilderness

After Stoyanka told us about the shadowmoss, we tried to gather the people and march into the wilderness, to find the shadowmoss. Unfortunately Ser Richta had a truly insane and stupid plan to save the village. He told the peasants that they should kill the infested and wait till the babarians come back to slaughter even more people. I gave my best to convince them from the fact, that Ser Richta ist about to doom the entire village and that there is a cure against the Amber Rage, the disease, by which the babarians and their weapons were infested with. But the peasants kept a mistrust against me and Aldelica and if Stoyanka hadn’t supported our cause this would have been the end for Sothmere. So we managed to get a week to find the Shadowmoss and return to Sothmere or Wanda and the other would be lost. We still tried to convince as much people as possible to come with us on our march into the wilderness, but only Olek the Clown and Fiala promised us help. Additionally, Stoyanka gave us a further companion, a guide and ten flask filled with a potion, that slows the effect of the Amber Rage. The companion was a chasind named Aiyana, who travels with a wolf. She calls the wolf Amarok and says he is her friend and tamed, but I’m not quite sure about the last part. For the guide Stoyanka seems to have summoned a magical crow, who needs to be fed with some special bugs. I didn’t really understood the details, but actually I think, I don’t want to know them. When we left Sothmere, I had a bad feeling about Ser Richta. I had prefered to take him with us to have an eye on him, but instead he took the villagers to the garrison nearby to protect them.

Our first stop on our way to the shadowmoss was the village Witchford, a gost village, which lost its people to the Amber Rage, by killing the infested villagers and in the end the babarians overrun them. The last survivor was an old man with only one leg. He begged us to kill him, but Adelica wished to save him, at least we had the possabilities to save him, if we find the cure. It wouldn’t have been a problem for me to kill him, but killing him could cost me the position as Adelicas guard. Further I saw no reason for his death. In the end, I left him with a dagger and one of the potions, so he could choose for himself, if he wants to live or die. He took the dagger and after Tal, Aiyana and Tulkas looted the remains of some houses. A questionable deed for we were fighting against the time to save the villagers. And we were afraid that the garrison was already under siege by the babarians, because the old man told us that the ones, who destroyed his village, went to the north, where Stohmere is located.

We met a traveller with two dogs who knew the way to Dosov, a small town and the last piece of civilisation on our way to the hidden lair, where we shall find the shadowmoss. He also told us about Baba Zorya the leader of the people in Dosov. He also told us, that she likes good wine and likes it even more to drink. Also I have to say, that she was quite nice looking. When we reached Dosov she welcomed us in their vine-yards and offered us a drink in her home. There we ask her to look after Alistair and our cart, but despite of my charme she still wanted some payment. In the end, I gave her the bottle of vintivan wine, which I selled Tulkas on the festival for a veridium dagger.

After hours of travelling through the swamp, this strange bird suddenly died out of the nowhere. And we had to cook the rest of these bugs, so a fire elemental would lead us to the shadowmoss. A truly horrible smell. Tal had to vomit because of it. Which makes me wonder, how sensitive is the nose of a qunari? But still its no shame, I almost vomited myself. Well and exept the horrible smell, which will stay for days in our clothing, we also lured a giant crab out of the swamp. Fearfull at first, but we cut of its pincers in a breath and it fleed even before Tulkas realised its presance.